May 09, 2018

NYCB – Robbins 100 continues

Oh my goodness. There was more ritual packed into Tuesday than you’ll ever find among The Cats of Thistle Hill. (Last night in NYCB's 4th Ring, Haglund observed a balleto-felineo-mane cuddling up with his dog-eared copy of the 1994 book during the unusually long intermissions.)

The day began with what was supposed to be a quick trip to The Met Museum to see the latest exhibition Heavenly Bodies – Fashion and the Catholic Imagination which opened for member previews. Five hours later… Well, you know how it goes once you get inside The Met. “Which way to the Anna Wintour Costume Center?” you ask. “Go through Egypt and turn right,” you are told. Well, Egypt is pretty darned big at The Met. It’s, like, everywhere.

But we finally found the stairs down into the cellar where The Vatican Collection was on display. This is a stunning collection of garments worn by clergy in past centuries. Pope Pius IX, the longest reigning Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, had a team of 15 women who worked for 16 years to make a series of vestments for him out of gold metal and silver metal threads. The artistry in these garments – delicate shading of colors within the embroidery, the intricate detail of human faces and men on horseback – is nearly unbelievable. A few of the characters depicted in their bare feet on the capes even have Morton’s Toes.

No one is supposed to take photographs of the exhibit. But the single cordial museum employee stationed at the exhibit was no match for the happy, enthusiastic crowd of donors who were clicking away. Haglund got caught up in the herd mentality of it all:

So, then we proceeded upstairs to the Medieval area to see the rest of the exhibit from the collections of Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Valentino, McQueen, and many others whose fashion ideas were influenced by Catholic ritual and clergy dress. One wedding ensemble by Christian Lacroix seemed pretty enough until you noticed that the bride was holding dead or nearly dead roses.

This exhibit is well worth the investment of time. So, if you’re coming from out of town this spring to see some ballet, take some time to visit The Met Museum, too.

Then in the evening, it was off to NYCB to see the alternate cast of last Friday’s program of Fancy Free, Dybbuk, and West Side Story Suite.

Dybbuk was a fascinating excursion into Jewish folklore. It’s not only a “black and white” ballet by Robbins, but it’s about dark and light as well. Prior to their births, a young man and woman are pledged by their fathers to marry one another. Right before the wedding, the father of the bride breaks off the marriage agreement because his future son-in-law is too poor. The young man dies of a broken heart but comes back in spirit to enter the young woman’s body. The father and the religious order perform a Hasidic exorcism to rid the daughter of the young man’s spirit. Ultimately, she chooses to join the world of his spirit rather than marry anyone else.

Tiler Peck & Joaquin De Luz on the first night and Sterling Hyltin & Anthony Huxley last night were phenomenal in their portrayals of the young couple. But the stars of this dance were the Men of the Corps de Ballet who performed the lines, circles, and individual dances based on Jewish origin with impeccable precision, energy, and authority. Devin Alberda, Daniel Applebaum, Harrison Coll, Cameron Dieck, Ralph Ippolito, Alec Knight, Roman Mejia, Lars Nelson, Aaron Sanz, Peter Walker, and Andres Zuniga, always dressed in black with either caps or fedoras cocked identically on their heads, were a stirring sect engaged in determined ritual.

Fancy Free is getting a major cast refreshing this year. Last Friday, Mary Elizabeth Sell made an impressive NY debut as the girl in the yellow skirt with the red purse. Last night Alexa Maxwell did the same. Both women found the flirty confidence to handle all three sailors at the same time. No problem. Miriam Miller was lovely in her NY debut as the third passerby on Friday night and in her repeat performance last evening. But what Manhattan had been waiting for since the unveiling at the Kennedy Center some months ago was the new trio of cracker jacks: Roman Mejia, Harrison Coll, Sebastian Villarini-Velez. This was Fleet Week as it should be. Sign us up for duty on their ship.

Harrison Coll, his white “Dixie Cup” pushed back from his forehead, gave a wow performance as the second sailor, the one who gets an extensive turn around the dance floor with the girl wearing purple, in this case Tiler Peck. With full steam ahead charisma, he slid across on his heels stage-fore and stage-aft. His enthusiasm and energy were so high that when he rushed to pull out a chair for his lady friend, his feet scooted out from under him. It was something that could have been in the choreography from the outset. We’ve got to get Coll on the fast track at NYCB, because we are sure to lose him to Broadway sooner than later.

Roman Mejia and Sebastian Villarini-Velez took star turns as the little, feisty sailor and the one who can’t keep his shoes tied. We haven’t seen such a fully animated, musically punctuated trio of sailors in this ballet in a long, long time. Let’s hope that they don’t get split up but have the opportunity to build on the rapport they’ve thus far created.

We can’t avoid mentioning how the use of the low-level inaudible recording of Billie Holiday’s singing at the beginning of Fancy Free is a terrible substitute for the authentically scratchy yet clearly audible recording by Dee Dee Bridgewater that NYCB used from the time that it premiered its own version of Fancy Free in 1980 until Andrew Litton made the switch a couple of years ago. Maybe Ms. Holiday sounds just fine to someone standing on the conductor’s platform, but it is a washout in most of the rest of the house. Worse still, it has to compete with the noise and conversation of the ushers seating people after the lights go down.

West Side Story Suite ran into some problems on both nights due to terrible singing by the dancers. Terrible. Period. Everybody, everybody, needs singing lessons, and only dancers who can reach the high notes should be cast in the singing roles. Some of the flat singing was cringe-worthy. Nevertheless, Peter Walker made a fine dancing/acting debut as Tony last evening. Zachary Catazaro was persuasive in his debut as Bernardo, but his knife very nearly came out of his hands when he spun it – just like the lute slid out of his hands during his debut as Apollo. Also, several of the male Jets and Sharks couldn’t drop their “ballet walk” to look like credible hoods. West Side Story Suite needs some caring attention right now before things get any worse.

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, a Louboutin netted vamp that holds the shoe intact, is bestowed upon the Men of the Corps de Ballet in Dybbuk and the three Corpsmen last night who tore up Fancy Free into parade confetti.

Comments

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Great review. I was deciding whether I should revisit the Fancy Free/Dybbuk/WSS program to see Coll & Mejia. It’s really only WSS that has me thinking against. I think I’ll go and then leave at the second intermission.

I’m loving the Robbins centennial so far. I’m only sad that I’m gonna have to miss De Luz in Other Dances because I’m busy on both nights it’s being performed.

Thanks for the best laughs I’ve had all week, Haglund. The first season that NYCB did Fancy Free someone forgot to give the dancers the storyline; FF came across as a museum piece straight out of mothballs. I’ve avoided it ever since. (ABT 1; NYCB 0). Maybe it’s time for me to see it again.

As for WSSS, I avoid it like the plague: dancers who can’t sing, singers on the side of the stage who can’t dance, gang members who are terrified only that they’re going to muss their hair and makeup.

I’m going next Thursday instead: Fanfare is on the program and it’s one of my favorites.

Thanks, Naomi. Indeed Shirley recorded it for the production by ABT for whom Robbins originally made the ballet. Several decades passed before NYCB took it into its repertory. Robbins was certainly still alive when that occurred and presumably chose which version of the recording would be used in NYCB's production. I don't know what the point was of changing Robbins' decision -- maybe there were good ones. But my point in the review was that the current recording is inferior to what it replaced.